The much anticipated (mostly because of my constant, relentless, some might say, witty reminders) 3rd Annual #Lemonade Stand Fundraiser has come and gone. We fell short of our overly ambitious goal of raising $8,000 but all things considered, we did very well As Dylan’s Mama Bear, it was unbelievably touching to see almost everyone who has ever worked with Dylan at the event – his very first teacher in pre-nursery (and the only teacher who had the pleasure of teaching a pre-narc Dylan), his JK/SK teacher, his grade 1 teacher, his school principal and VP, his CYW, his psychologist, both his private and school OTs, his tutor, his camp counsellor, his camp director, and his karate senseis – it was so nice to see how loved my sweet, sleepy boy is. A HUGE, ENORMOUS, GIGANTIC thank you to my co-organizers Jodi Robinson-Newman, Alison Posen, and Ruth Kane, without whom this event would not have been possible, and would not have been nearly as much fun.

Send an email to wakeupdylan@outlook.com with clear and concise instructions as to which prizes you’d like to select and how many tickets we should allocate per prize (ie. 2 tickets for Kung Fu Fighting, 1 ticket for Pamper Yo’ Self #2, and 1 ticket for Meatballs). Two make-your-own slime kits from Mastermind Toys and a Harry Potter wax seal kit, a starfish squishy, a unicorn squishy, putty, unicorn dabbing socks, and two 4oz slimes donated by Coco for Slime. 60-minute massage from registered massage therapist Ashley Lee, LipSense Starter Kit donated by Elise Tzurkov, and a $20 gift card to Olive Nails & Spa. Gift certificate for a cut and blow-dry at FiHair with hairstylist Kristen Mullen and a $20 gift card to Olive Nails & Spa. Two-dozen vanilla or chocolate nut-free cupcakes from Baked with Joy, a $15 gift card to Bagel World, and a gift card for 5 dozen bagels from What a Bagel.

As has become our tradition, every spring/summer, my friends and I organize a lemonade stand fundraiser in support of narcolepsy and cataplexy. The Annual #WakeUpDylan Lemonade Stand Fundraiser was created to raise much-needed awareness and funding for narcolepsy and cataplexy. The Annual #WakeUpDylan Lemonade Stand Fundraiser has become a really fun, highly-anticipated, community event that gets bigger and better every year. There will be lots of lemonade at the #WakeUpDylan Lemonade Stand Fundraiser (pink lemonade is always the crowd fave), lots of sweet treats (including the kiddie coveted candy kabobs), custom hand-made bracelets, and a fantastic promotional draw.

While I recognize my theory may be somewhat controversial and that it relies heavily on other yet unproven theories like time travel, I am confident that in time, much like many of Einstein’s theories, the missing pieces will fall into place once modern science has caught up to my intellect. I won’t go into the sordid details of obtaining a diagnosis, the battery of tests he was subjected to or the cornucopia of medication he sampled for the two years that followed, but suffice it to say this part of Dylan’s story was so unpleasant that even Disney found it too tragic to include (and we all know Disney loves a good tearjerker – Bambi, Nemo, Toy Story 3, Up It’s simply not believable, or scientifically possible, that a three-year-old could go to sleep for an extended period of time and miraculously wake up with all the skills necessary to succeed as a five-year-old. I suppose it would also be incredibly creepy to have an adult prince kiss a toddler but if you ask me, Sleeping Beauty didn’t need a prince, she needed a Jewish mother (I could devote an entire blog post to this topic alone, so for the sake of brevity,